Wiki » VagrantImageBox

Notes on how to create a Vagrant image

This is about VirtualBox only so far.

Also see Vagrant.

Local

Use Mageia 8 DVD ISO to install Linux on a virtual machine named "merlin" for instance.

Since this is a cloud image, I do not select GUI and uncheck most of the default items.

Then :

vagrant package --base merlin --output merlin.box
md5sum merlin.box 
b95ab1272f18ccccccccccccffddc9fc merlin.box
vagrant box add --checksum-type md5 --checksum b95ab1272f18ccccccccccccffddc9fc --name merlin merlin.box

You can then use it on your local machine with name "merlin"

mkdir mymerlintest
cd mymerlintest
vagrant init merlin
vagrant up

Cloud

In order to make your image available to everyone, you need to create an account and log into https://app.vagrantup.com

And provide a name like <your account name>/<box name>

Then you can upload the box file.

Inside

Here are some hints and details on what to do, so that "vagrant up" ends with success.

Enable sshd

# dnf install openssh openssh-server
# systemctl enable sshd.service
# update-crypto-policies --set LEGACY

Last command is to be compatible with Vagrant 2.2.9

sudoers.d

Having a file to allow Vagrant to switch to root without password:

# usermod -a -G wheel vagrant
# id vagrant
uid=2012(vagrant) gid=2012(vagrant) groupes=2012(vagrant),10(wheel)
# cat /etc/sudoers.d/wheeler
%wheel  ALL=(ALL)       NOPASSWD: ALL

Cleanup script

Here is a script to reduce image size (https://github.com/boxcutter/centos/blob/master/eol/script/cleanup.sh)

#!/bin/bash -eux
echo "==> Clear out machine id"
rm -f /etc/machine-id
touch /etc/machine-id
DISK_USAGE_BEFORE_CLEANUP=$(df -h)
echo "==> Clean up dnf cache of metadata and packages to save space"
dnf -y --enablerepo='*' clean all
echo "==> Removing temporary files used to build box"
rm -rf /tmp/* 
echo "==> Rebuild RPM DB"
rpmdb --rebuilddb
rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db*
# delete any logs that have built up during the install
find /var/log/ -name *.log -exec rm -f {} \;
echo '==> Clear out swap and disable until reboot'
set +e
swapuuid=$(/sbin/blkid -o value -l -s UUID -t TYPE=swap)
case "$?" in
        2|0) ;;
        *) exit 1 ;;
esac
set -e
if [ "x${swapuuid}" != "x" ]; then
    # Whiteout the swap partition to reduce box size
    # Swap is disabled till reboot
    swappart=$(readlink -f /dev/disk/by-uuid/$swapuuid)
    /sbin/swapoff "${swappart}"
    dd if=/dev/zero of="${swappart}" bs=1M || echo "dd exit code $? is suppressed"
    /sbin/mkswap -U "${swapuuid}" "${swappart}"
fi
echo '==> Zeroing out empty area to save space in the final image'
# Zero out the free space to save space in the final image.  Contiguous
# zeroed space compresses down to nothing.
dd if=/dev/zero of=/EMPTY bs=1M || echo "dd exit code $? is suppressed"
rm -f /EMPTY
# Block until the empty file has been removed, otherwise, Packer
# will try to kill the box while the disk is still full and that's bad
sync
echo "==> Disk usage before cleanup"
echo "${DISK_USAGE_BEFORE_CLEANUP}"
echo "==> Disk usage after cleanup"
df -h